


My Favorite Color is You

by indevan



Series: Rock Band AU [28]
Category: Dragon Ball
Genre: Alternate Universe - Rock Band, F/M, Fluff, M/M, Weddings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-11
Updated: 2018-01-11
Packaged: 2019-03-03 15:54:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,124
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13344507
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/indevan/pseuds/indevan
Summary: With all the shit they’ve put each other through--most of it being Kakarrot’s own fault--he wanted nothing more than to give her the wedding she’s dreamed of





	My Favorite Color is You

**Author's Note:**

> [AU timeline](http://vertigoats.tumblr.com/post/166537761367/since-after-the-first-few-the-fics-in-rock-band)   
>  [AU tag](http://vertigoats.tumblr.com/tagged/rock-band-au)

Kakarrot lets out a groan of frustration and drops his hands.  He has to face facts: his hair is just not going to cooperate.  He’s even tried using that coconut-scented goop Turles runs through his unruly curls but it’s to no avail.  His hair is determined to stick out every which way.  Now it sticks out every which way  _ and _ he smells like suntan lotion.  He hopes Chi-Chi doesn’t mind, but he doubts it.  She wants a good wedding, if not a perfect wedding.

At least he’s not the only one struggling with his hair.

For the better part of an hour, Lapis has been tugging on Raditz’s hair to try and tame it into a ponytail.  By this point, at least a half dozen hair ties have fallen victim to his brother’s thick, lion’s mane of hair.

“Just give it up,” he says with a sigh.

Lapis shakes his head. “No.  I  _ will _ do this.”

Kakarrot wipes his product-laden hands on a towel and turns to look at the two of them.  Lapis is wearing a tailored, burgundy velvet suit with a black shirt and looking like he just stepped off the runway.  Like Kakarrot, Raditz is wearing a black tuxedo with a green cumberbund.  Since their wedding is going to be outside at the botanical gardens, Chi-Chi had chosen light green and a more “spring” green as their colors.  Kakarrot, who’d been busy doing promotion for their next album, had been glad to leave all the planning up to her.  Sure, he  _ felt _ bad that he wasn’t helping, but Chi-Chi enjoyed finally getting to plan her dream wedding.  It ended up working out for the best that he’s been so busy, anyway.  Their finances weren’t great when their original date came around so they had to push it back a little.  With all the shit they’ve put each other through--most of it being Kakarrot’s own fault--he wanted nothing more than to give her the wedding she’s dreamed of.

Goten toddles past him, chasing after Trunks, both of them alternating between screaming and having a rapidfire conversation Kakarrot can’t begin to follow.  The sound of a lighter flicking on draws his attention away from the kids.

“Put that out,” he says sharply.

Vegeta glares at him from around his cigarette.  He’s perched on a chair in the changing area given to them by the venue and looking like a particularly pissed off penguin in his tuxedo.

“No, really.  There’s no smoking here because it might ‘damage the flowers,’” he says, using finger quotes. “And, more importantly, Chi-Chi won’t let me smoke so no one else can.”

Vegeta continues to glare but he flicks his lighter off.  Turles looks up from adjusting his bowtie in a small mirror mounted on one of the vanities through the small room and cocks a brow.

“She isn’t letting you smoke?”

He, like most everyone, knows better than to bring up the fact that Kakarrot doesn’t smoke cigarettes.

“No.  She said she wants me to be one hundred percent sober for the wedding.” He sighs. “I don’t think I’ve been one hundred percent sober since eighth grade…”

“Seriously?” Krillin asks.

Though they’ve reconnected, Krillin isn’t in the wedding party due to it being so small, but he volunteered to keep an eye on the kids while everyone else got ready.  He’s glad he’s here, if only because he’ll be distracted and it takes a sharp, focused mind to wrangle Trunks and Goten.

“Oh, that’s nothing,” Turles says, never one to be outdone. “I’ve been doing hard drugs since my bar mitzvah.”

Like he often does when Kakarrot or someone else relates a story of their hellion youth, Krillin adopts a contemplative face.  Kakarrot figures that he’s wondering what his life would have been like if he hadn’t moved and the two of them had stayed friends.

“I still can’t believe you’re actually getting married.” Vegeta flicks his unlit cigarette across the room and smirks. “Like that it’s  _ actually _ happening.”

Trunks skids to a stop and looks up at him.

“My wedding,” he says very seriously.

Vegeta sighs.

“We’ve been over this.  This isn’t your wedding.”

It will always astound Kakarrot that he and Bulma always try to talk to Trunks like he’s an adult and not a toddler.

“I marry Goten.”

Goten, in response, claps his hands excitedly.

“Not until you’re older, you won’t.”

Trunks scrunches his face up in indignation and Kakarrot nearly chokes on his tongue trying not to laugh.  It really is uncanny at how much he looks like Vegeta, especially when he’s mad.  Vegeta has a point, though.  Trunks isn’t three yet and Goten isn’t even two.

“There.”

Lapis steps back and puts his hands on his hips.  He’s somehow managed the impossible and pulled Raditz’s hair back into a low ponytail.

“You look good, Radi,” Turles says, flashing a thumbs up.

His brother reaches back to pat at his hair as if he isn’t sure that it’s his.  Goten breaks away from Trunks and tugs on his pant leg.

“Carry--Radis!” he says, lifting up his chubby arms.

Raditz bends down and scoops him up.  Goten immediately nuzzles his messy head of hair against his chest.  Kakarrot wonders sometimes if he should be upset at how much his youngest is obsessed with his uncle--the point where he ignores him, Chi-Chi, and even Gohan if Raditz is in the room--but it’s honestly cute how much he adores him.

“You ready to see mommy and daddy get married?” Raditz asks.

Goten nods. “Yeah, yeah!”

Lapis smiles and presses his cheek against Raditz’s arm only to be batted away by Goten.

“No, La!” he says huffily. “My Radis.”

“Goten,” Kakarrot says, trying to make his tone sound at all authoritative. “Be nice.”

He makes a pouty face but lets Lapis remain where he is.

“Do I look alright?”

Kakarrot spreads his arms and turns towards the others for appraisal.

“I think we all look ridiculous, to be honest,” Turles says. “None of us are meant to be in formalwear.  ‘Cept maybe Vegeta.”

“Thanks, asshole,” he sneers.

“Yeah,” Trunks echoes. “Thanks, ah-hole.”

Kakarrot also forgets that he and Bulma  _ also _ don’t bother to censor themselves around Trunks.  He figures at some point he’s going to teach curse words to Goten but that’s a problem for him to figure out on a day where he  _ isn’t _ getting married.

\--

In many ways, Chi-Chi can’t believe it’s actually happening.  Since she was a child, she dreamed of her perfect wedding.  A handsome prince charming waiting for her as she walked down the aisle.  It’s different than she imagined, but she couldn’t be happier.

Gohan’s happy, too, standing next to her and beaming up with big, bright eyes.  She knows he’s wanted for years for her and Kakarrot to be married.  More than once, he would ask her why they weren’t and she never had an answer.

“Mommy, you look so pretty,” he says.

“She better,” Bulma replies. “I paid for the makeup artist and hairdresser.”

She winks and comes up behind Chi-Chi to drape her arms over her shoulders.  Planning her wedding party came with its challenges, mostly to the effect that between raising her kids and working, she ended up with not a lot of friends.  Her friends from high school were never really her friends and abandoned her before she hit her second trimester when she was pregnant with Gohan.  Bulma has become a fast friend in the past year and someone she sees regularly so the choice to make her Maid of Honor was simple.  Her other two bridesmaids ended up being Launch, Kakarrot’s longtime co-worker from the record shop, and Caulifla, that loud girl from U6.  She isn’t particularly close to either of them but she remembers how Launch always took shifts for Kakarrot so he could go to her doctor’s appointments with her and Caulifla has been weirdly helpful with wedding plans.

Right now, Caulifla pats at her wild hair, trying desperately to tame it.  Launch, meanwhile, is already sneaking sips from a flask even though Chi-Chi assured her it was an open bar.  She swallows and turns back towards the mirror.

“Don’t worry,” Bulma assures her. “You only need them for, like, ten minutes and, besides, everyone will be looking at you.”

She presses a kiss to her temple and pulls back.  She’s right, Chi-Chi reasons, even if the thought of every eye being on her is weird to her.  Weirder still is the fact that apparently some magazine has exclusive coverage of her wedding.  King Kai set it up and the fact that apparently they warrant press still boggles her mind.  Chi-Chi can remember sitting annoyed on a broken lawn chair in Turles’s garage, having to listen to the five of them run through the same song fifteen times.

“Chi-Chi?”

Her father steps into the room and the moment his eyes land on her, she sees them well up with tears.

“Hi, Papa.”

“Grandpa!” Gohan enthuses. “Look how pretty mommy is!”

He runs to him and her father easily scoops him up as if Gohan is still tiny and not turning seven this year.

“She is,” he tells him, nodding.

He doesn’t have to say it, but she knows he’s thinking of her mother.  Chi-Chi barely remembers her but she’s seen enough photos to know that they look alike.  He sets Gohan down and walks towards her.  He’s been so proud this entire time--it’s always astounded her that her father never once judged her for dating a blatant stoner, for getting pregnant out of high school and having to put college on an indefinite hold, for any of it.  He smiles at her now and she can see the tears magnified by the wire-rimmed glasses he always wears.

“Are you ready, princess?” he asks, using her childhood nickname.

Chi-Chi looks around the small dressing room and then nods.  As ready as she’ll ever be, at least.

“Yes.”

\--

The entire wedding planning process has been weird for Kakarrot.  Maybe it’s because it ran parallel to how much work they had to do in the studio, but he still hasn’t completely grasped the fact that he’s going to get  _ married. _  Yet here he is, standing at the end of the aisle, waiting for Chi-Chi.

He sees the wedding party first: Launch and Turles, who both look unsteady on their feet, followed by Caulifa and Vegeta.  Behind them, Raditz walks Bulma down the aisle before taking his spot next to him as best man.  Gohan comes next, carrying Goten in his arms.  They take their seat with his parents.

And then, Chi-Chi.

She walks out, clinging to her father and everything else fades away.  This is it, he realizes.  That they’ve made it this far.  Sure, they’ve been living together for almost seven years and in the grand scheme of all things logical, this doesn’t mean much, but they’re finally on the right track.  They’ve managed to beat the odds and make it to the altar.

Honestly, the ceremony is a blur.  He can only focus on Chi-Chi’s face and the way her fringe falls below her eyebrows, at the delicate fabric of her dress and how it fits her, and he can’t believe it took him until they were split up for almost a year for him to write a song about her because looking at her now, all he can think is poetry.

When he kisses her, it’s the same as when she came to his house in the middle of the summer before their senior year, laid her feelings out, and planted one on him.  It’s every single perfunctory kiss she would give him when she forgave him.  It’s more than those and he wants to lose himself in her.  Wants to do nasty things, too, but that’s probably ill-advised.

Everyone cheers around him, but he can barely hear it.

“We did it,” she says.

“We did.”

He presses his forehead against hers and he doesn’t care if it’s not appropriate or “correct,” but he kisses her again.

\--

Bulma sighs fondly and places her chin in her hands.  She wants to congratulate herself on a job well done, but it isn’t her day.  Even though she helped Chi-Chi through most of the planning and helped fund it, she knows it doesn’t matter because she isn’t the one getting married.  Weirdly, though, she doesn’t mind not getting the credit.

She watches Trunks and Goten run over paved area of the enclosed botanical gardens and sighs again.  It isn’t that she’s  _ unhappy _ with her life, but…

“What’s wrong?”

She turns to look at Vegeta just in time to witness him shoving an entire gulf shrimp into his mouth.

“Nothing…”

“Bullshit,” he says, mouth full. “What is it?”

She makes a face at the fact that she can see gobs of chewed shellfish in his mouth, but she ignores it--presses on.

“I kind of want a wedding.”

He watches her for a moment with those intense eyes of his and then swallows.

“You want to get married?” He quirks a brow. “Now?”

It isn’t that simple.  They’ve talked about it before, how they’re satisfied with their lives, and they don’t need to bungle it up with legal paperwork.  And yet…

“If you want to get married, we can get married.” Vegeta shrugs.

Bulma can’t help it. “That has got to be the worst proposal I’ve ever heard.”

He shrugs again and gestures away from himself.

“I’m just saying.”

She leans against him and sighs.

“I don’t think I want to get married,” she says finally, “but I want a wedding.”

She reaches up to fuss with one of his tuxedo studs--he really does look nice in formalwear.  Shame he never dresses up.

“What about this…” he says. “we have a wedding, get a registry, don’t get married, and still get everyone to give us shit.”

Bulma laughs and rests her head on his shoulder.  That honestly sounds like a brilliant idea.

“I love you.”

“Yeah, yeah.”

She tilts her face up and nips at his jaw.

“C’mon, Han Solo, let’s not pull the tough guy act.”

Vegeta rolls his eyes but then he presses his lips to her temple.

“Love you, too.”

Bulma smiles and looks back out at the reception area.

“Do you think it’s weird, though?  That we don’t want to get married, I mean.”

He shrugs and reaches for his flute of champagne.

“No.  That shit just isn’t for us.  Can you see us up there, exchanging vows?”

He’s right about that--she really  _ can’t _ see them doing it, at least without at least one expletive thrown in.  She takes his glass and takes a sip.

“Nope.  Then...we’re good?”

He takes the flute back from her and downs it in one go.

“We’re good.”

\--

“Well, it was a valiant effort, but it seems there’s nothing that can stand up to your hair.”

Lapis hides his laugh behind one hand and pats at Raditz’s hair with the other.  The last hair tie had held up through the ceremony, but it finally called it quits the moment the reception started and his hair has returned to its usual state.

“You looked good with it pulled back but I like your lion mane better.”

Lapis gives that slight upturned smile of his he’s patented.

“I’m glad you do since there isn’t much I can do with it.”

He looks around the room, wondering where Turles went.  He hasn’t seen him since Kakarrot and Chi-Chi had their first dance.  Once he and Lapis had gone out when they called for other couples (the press balked that they had a DJ as if Kakarrot would want to perform at his own damn wedding), he hadn’t seen his best friend.  Last he saw, he and Launch were trying every combination of everything at the open bar, but neither is in sight.  He cringes, knowing that they’re probably off somewhere harassing the butterfly garden or some shit.

“It’s a nice wedding.  Very  _ Midsummer’s Night Dream-- _ minus any fairy orgies, but, hey, the day is still young.”

He gives a semblance of a laugh, but it isn’t just Turles’s absence that’s bothering him.  Ever since the wedding became more of a reality and less of a vague notion, he’s been thinking about his own relationship.  It’s taken a bit for him and Lapis to admit they were serious, but now that they were--where did that leave them?  He has a distinct memory of a time a few short weeks ago when he was helping Lapis with his shot.  He always said that Raditz was stabbing him in the leg, which confused any company they had ever.  This time, he had sat on the counter, making the lyrics from the song “Heroin” sound like he was talking about his own shot.  The way his moody, lilting voice sang, “‘Cause it makes me feel like I’m a man when I put a spike into my vein,” and Raditz realized that he wanted to marry him.

But he hasn’t told him--hasn’t figured out how.

Instead he crams bacon-wrapped scallops in his mouth and ignores every thought about it.  Maybe he’ll wait for Lapis to bring it up and so he can say “yeah, let’s get married,” but what if he doesn’t?  There’s too many questions and he doesn’t have the answers to any of them.

Raditz hooks an arm behind his chair and watches Chi-Chi step up to throw the bouquet.  It seems like out of nowhere, a bunch of women he’s never seen before (he thinks several of them might work for the label, but he can’t be sure) gather around her for a chance to catch it.  There are some faces he recognizes: Lazuli, Launch’s sister Lunch, Caulifla, and Kale.

“If one of us catches it then Tarble owes me twenty bucks,” he hears her tell her girlfriend.

Kale nods. “R-right.”

Raditz snorts and reaches for his flute of champagne.  Kakarrot had wanted prosecco but the venue only had champagne and so they were stuck with it.

Chi-Chi tosses the bouquet and everyone jumps for it.  He sees it bounce off of someone’s hands in the middle of its trajectory and go off course.  The next thing he’s aware of is something landing with a  _ thwump _ in his hair.

Raditz blinks for a moment, not sure what happened, until whatever landed in his hair falls in his lap and he sees that it’s the bouquet.  He sees the frilly, green and white flowers (“Viburnum and green cabbage roses!” he vaguely remembers Chi-Chi saying as if that meant anything to him) and then looks up.  The girl whose hand the bouquet had bounced off of stands in front of him, smiling.  He thinks he might know her--she’s a sound technician or something.

“Here,” he says, handing it over.

She shakes her head. “Nah.  It looks like you caught it.”

She takes off before Raditz can argue further and he stares at the bouquet.  He pays no heed to archaic, gendered wedding rituals but--seriously?

“Hmm.  Looks like you’re the next one to get married.” Lapis sounds so  _ amused. _

“It’s bullshit,” he tells him and only Chi-Chi’s ire at her bouquet being ruined stops him from slamming it on the table.

Lapis arches his brows and takes his own champagne flute.

“Bullshit, huh?  That’s a shame.”

With anyone else, it would probably be impossible to detect, but Raditz has learned to attune himself to the nuances of how his boyfriends speaks and he definitely notices a measure of hurt.

\--

Turles knows they aren’t as drunk as everyone thinks they are.  He can handle more than whatever weak shit the bartender at the botanical gardens can peddle out and so can Launch.  He’s known her in passing for years as Kakarrot’s co-worker but they’ve never properly hung out until the rehearsal dinner the night before.  She’s good fun and one of the few people out there other than maybe Vegeta who can keep up with him when it comes to partying.

Still, they’re a  _ little drunk, _ which is why they’re in a bathroom stall together.

Launch had asked about his pierced dick and Turles had jokingly offered to show her and that’s how they ended up here.

It’s not ideal, but he’s had sex in worse places.  Those places, though, don’t involve having the toilet paper dispenser lodged against the small of his back or the very real danger of toppling onto the toilet, but Turles is nothing if not resourceful.

It’s over fast enough and they have to make themselves presentable again.

“Think anyone noticed we were gone?” Launch asks.  She fluffs up her blonde curls with one hand and scowls at her reflection in the bathroom mirror.

Turles shrugs as he fixes his bowtie and cumberbund.  God, he looks like a fucking penguin.  Whoever invented tuxedos ought to be punched.  Mostly he wonders if Broly noticed he was gone.  He’s the only one in the wedding party since he’ll come to the wedding as a favor to Chi-Chi and at King Kai’s insistence, but being in the party itself is too much.

They’re about to head back out into the reception when Launch pauses, her hand hovering above the handle.  He wonders if she’s going to grab a paper towel to wrap around her hand so she doesn’t actually touch it.  He never did until he started using the gross broom closets that constituted as bathrooms on the road filled with black mold and graffiti written by the ghostly fingers of rock stars past.

“Shit,” she says.

“What?”

“We forgot a condom.”

That they did.  Turles cringes at the realization.

“Shit...are you on the pill?”

She shakes her head. “No.”

_ Well, fuck… _

It takes him less than three seconds to push it out of his head.

“It’ll be fine,” he tells her. “Like, what are the fucking odds?”

Launch regards him for a moment and then nods.

“Exactly.  What are the odds?”

\--

Kakarrot fidgets with the controls in the back of the limo partially out of the novelty of having them and partially out of his need to constantly be messing with someone.

Chi-Chi puts both of her hands over his to still them and he looks up at her.  A goofy grin floats onto his face--he still can’t believe it.

They’re married.

They have the rings, the party, the everything to prove it.  They had their first dance together and he got to dance his mother around the floor while she cried and said her baby was grown up.

“The boys were so cute in their matching tuxes,” she says.

He nods. “Is it wrong that I’m surprised that they made baby tuxes?”

“I don’t know why you’d think that they didn’t.”

She says it with a note of annoyance and--that’s his Chi-Chi.  Kakarrot wraps his arms around her and pulls her in for a kiss.  In a few days they’re going to drive up to the mountains to spend their honeymoon in a cozy cabin, but for now they’re going back to their apartment while Gohan and Goten spend the night at the trailer.

He’s not sure that he can wait, though.  His mind is troublingly clear and he feels as if he’s only just now aware of how gorgeous Chi-Chi is.

The drive from the botanical gardens to their apartment now seems impossibly long.

“Hey…” Kakarrot says, leaning in towards her. “Look what this button does.”

He presses a switch on the console next to him and the partition between them and the driver rolls up.  Chi-Chi pretends to look affronted but then carefully undoes her seatbelt--Kakarrot hadn’t even bothered with his.

“Don’t be loud,” she tells him. “That isn’t soundproof.  And be careful of my dress.”

He nods, already loosening his tie.

“Got it, got it.”

She kisses him and, immediately, his hands go into her hair to undo the work of a paid professional.  It’s stiff with hairspray and product but he doesn’t care--he’s always loved the feeling of her hair between his fingers.  Chi-Chi lets out a breathy little sigh and pulls herself onto his lap to deepen the kiss.

“Is it a left or right on 75th?” the driver calls.

Kakarrot curses into her mouth and Chi-Chi lets out a slight yelp.

“Use the GPS!” he calls back.  With an annoyed growl, he resumes kissing her.

“Who knew my husband was so horny?” She gives a soft laugh.

He pulls back for a moment and grins at her.

“Call me that again.”

She furrows her brow. “Horny?”

Kakarrot shakes his head. “No, your husband.  I love the sound of it.”


End file.
